


mums and their offspring - it's complicated stuff

by jayjaybee



Category: Holby City
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-08-13 14:14:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7979680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jayjaybee/pseuds/jayjaybee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bernie talks (and doesn't talk) to the kids.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“And how’s - _Serena_?”  
  
Bernie could cheerfully strangle her son for the insinuation in his intonation. “She’s fine,” she says, keeping her face impassive, her tone neutral.  
  
“Is she?” Cameron smirks.  
  
Bernie glares back at him.  
  
Cameron is unabashed. “And have you told her how you feel about her?”  
  
Bernie maintains the glare for a moment or two, then looks away. She rubs her forehead, and wincing, she sighs, and eventually, she says, “I kissed her.”  
  
“Mother!” Cameron claps his hands in delight.  
  
“Don’t, Cam,” Bernie says. “Oh, don’t. I shouldn’t have done it.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
Bernie just shakes her head.  
  
“Did she kiss you back?” Cameron presses, his eyes gleeful.  
  
“Cameron! We’re not having this conversation, okay? We’re just not.”  
  
“But did she?”  
  
Rueful, wistful, Bernie smiles quietly. “She did.”  
  
Cameron nods. “I knew she liked you too. So what now - ?"   
  
"Can we not talk about this, Cam? I don’t - can we not?”  
  
“I just want you to be happy, mum.”  
  
Well, there’s an opportunity. And so Bernie takes it. “You going back to med school will make me happy. When do you start back?”


	2. Chapter 2

Working with her hands is where Bernie finds her peace. And if there aren’t bodies to take apart and put back together, she finds other things. When she is at home, then, her garage (the possessive pronoun is deliberate) is her sanctuary, because engines are a little like bodies (though if she left body parts strewn around theatre the way she leaves car parts strewn around the garage, she might get struck off).

At some point - she might have been eleven or twelve at the time - Charlotte starts to come out to watch her work. Soon enough, it becomes their thing. It is their way of spending (what the magazines that neither of them read call) ‘girltime’ together.

(Bernie’s not sure quite why Charlotte began to refer to parts that are irreparably damaged as ‘cactus’, but the word soon becomes a vital part of their diagnostic vocabulary.)

When Cameron’s doing tours of university open days, and his sister is asked about what she wants to be when she grows up, Charlotte declares that she wants to be a mechanic. 

‘You could be an engineer,’ Marcus says, misunderstanding what she means. ‘You could study engineering.’

‘I want to make things with my hands’, Charlotte says.

‘You can make engines,’ Marcus says. ‘You can design them. Look - ‘ and he thrusts shiny university brochures towards her. 

Charlotte goes to university.

When, after the accident, Bernie is finally let out of hospital and is allowed home to recuperate, all hell is breaking loose.

Charlotte has dropped out of university.

‘Talk to her,’ Marcus says, as Bernie is struggling to find her place in this house, in this home that doesn’t seem to belong to her. As Bernie is trying not to think about what she has left behind, of what she has lost, of what she will never have again. As she ignores thoughts of what could have been, of what she could be, if only she were brave enough.

‘Talk some sense into her!’ he says.

She finds Charlotte in her garage.

(It’s Charlotte’s garage now. Bernie’s not sure when ownership passed from one of them to the other - perhaps it was a gradual thing - but it’s Charlotte’s now).

She watches her daughter work. She watches the skill with which she moves, the focus in her entire body. She watches her as she tries to start an engine, and as it splutters and fails to spark into life.

‘It’s cactus,’ Bernie says.

Charlotte looks up at her, grins. ‘Ye of little faith. Come here, hold this.’

They work, quietly.

‘Dad’s really angry,’ Charlotte says, eventually. 

‘I know.’

‘I don’t want to go back to uni.’

‘I know. Charlotte, he’ll get over it.’

‘Will he?’

‘Charlotte, you can’t live your life for other people. You’ll just make yourself miserable, and then everyone’s miserable. Do what makes you happy, and let everything else take care of itself. Life’s just too short.’

The irony of dispensing advice she herself does not live by is not lost on Bernie. She rubs at the scar on her neck.

‘Don’t let your life be full of ‘if onlys’,’ Charlotte,’ Bernie says. ‘Marcus’ll get over it. You need to do what makes you happy.’

Charlotte looks at her, quietly. And then goes back to work. ‘There,’ she says, a few moments later, giving the wrench a final twist. ‘Try that.’

Bernie goes to start the engine. It sputters, stutters, splutters. And then it roars into life.


End file.
